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Staff Selects Playlist: Songs We Heard in Jim Jarmusch Movies

Every week, a different FADER editor compiles a playlist to highlight a new release and give you a guide to that artist’s web of influences and peers. These Staff Selects live in our Spotify app, alongside GEN Fs from our archives and playlists for each issue. This week, it's Emilie Friedlander on filmmaker Jim Jarmusch as a musical tastemaker.

Along with his improvised dialogues, his metaphysical leanings, and his iconic white pompadour, Jim Jarmusch's musical taste is part of what makes him an American auteur. Beyond casting musicians like Tom Waits and Iggy Pop in starring roles, his filmography is studded with composition credits from the likes of jazz musician John Lurie (Stranger Than Paradise), Neil Young (Dead Man), RZA (Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai) and even cuts from a band that he himself created for lack of the right music for certain parts (Bad Rabbit, on Limits of Control). Last week, when we spoke to him about his ongoing collaboration with Dutch composer and lutenist Josef van Wissem (who incidentally, will be soundtracking part of his upcoming “crypto-vampire film" Only Lovers Left Alive), we got to thinking about all the amazing music that that has touched our lives by way of his films, from Hawaiian steel guitar to stoner doom metal to ethiopian jazz. We also threw in a few tracks from his band with Van Wissem for good measure, partly to do justice to the fact that the dude can shred, too.